


Land of Sweets

by Sonora



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Christmas, Comfort, M/M, Reflection, hansencest advent calendar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-02-28 20:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2746649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonora/pseuds/Sonora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't really celebrate Christmas anymore, but that doesn't mean they don't do it together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chuck’s not in their room, when Herc gets back from the UN’s weekly briefing.

And the senior pilot looks around at their space, the small concrete and steel hollow that’s been their home for the past five years, just taking in the emptiness of it. It doesn’t feel much like the holidays here; neither one of them was ever good at decorating, all the little knick-knacks that held meaning lost a long time ago, any faith Herc had vaporized with Scissure. 

It’s been a long time since they bothered to celebrate. 

Maybe that’s a disservice to his boy.

Doesn’t matter. Herc’s pretty sure he knows where Chuck is.

He doesn’t need the ghost drift to guide him, tug him back through the hallways of Sydney’s Shatterdome towards the jaeger bays. If Herc knows anything in this life, it’s this - Chuck runs to his machines, before he comes to his father.

Doesn’t mean it’s the best way of dealing with the problem, though.

It’s late, and most of the personnel have either been given official orders or extra time off for the holidays. Herc doesn’t encounter a soul on his way there. Probably better that way. He’s in a foul mood himself.

Their girl’s conn-pod door opens without any effort at all - Chuck didn’t even put the privacy locks on. Light spills out, red and blue and gold, music tumbling along with it. Not Chuck’s usual fare, and Herc smiles a little, hearing it.

“Classical?” he asks as he steps in. Striker’s AI shuts the door automatically behind him. “Thought you hated the shit.”

Chuck looks up from where he’s bundled into a nest of survival blankets and inflatable mattress pads, all the emergency shit Herc’s kept in the conn-pod since that January he and Scott were stuck in the Sea of Okhotsk for half a day, waiting for a pick-up. Max is curled up next to him, squat head barely visible above the military green. There’s a jar of peppermint vodka - the homemade kind, little candies half-dissolved in the bottom - in his hand.

“Mum used to play it.”

Herc nods, the mention of Angie dulled slightly by the sight of his son, still alive, smiling a little. “The Nutcracker,” he nods, and sits down crosslegged next to Chuck. “Thought it sounded familiar.”

“They’re shutting us down, aren’t they?”

“Brass don’t want to make the announcement until after New Year’s.”

“Cowards.”

“No shit.” Herc holds out his hand for the jar, and Chuck hands it silently over. It burns like a motherfucker on the way down, the mint flavor warped and intense. “But maybe it’s better. Let everyone have a nice Christmas.”

Chuck’s quiet for a minute more, the strains of the second act of Angie’s favorite ballet picking up, ephemeral and sweet.

“This is the part where the sheila’s in the woods, yeah?” Herc asks. “The doll’s a prince or something?”

The blankets rustle, Chuck moving closer, and Herc finds himself being wrapped into that little, warm cocoon. “Yeah,” Chuck says, laying his head on his father’s chest. “He’s taking her to the Land of Sweets. These are the snowflakes waking up.”

Herc strokes Chuck’s hair. “You still remember that?”

“Mum always took me.” Chuck squirms closer, and Herc rolls his eyes, just pulls his boy into his lap. It’s not often Chuck’s like this, quiet and pliant and open. It’s nice. Like he’s that little boy again, the six year old who sat on his mummy’s lap in the ballet with awe in his eyes.

“I always thought you just liked the sets. The sleigh that came down from the ceiling, those bits.”

Chuck shrugs, and lays his head down on Herc’s shoulder. “Maybe,” he mumbles.

There’s a lot more he’s not saying. And Herc almost offers to get the Pons system fired up, when Chuck nudges his jaw with his nose, lips just catching the edge of Herc’s chin, fingers pulling down the stiff cotton of Herc’s uniform. 

Chuck’s not a little boy anymore. These aren’t lights from the tree, but the glow of their war machine’s control panels. The Australian Ballet hasn’t performed in Sydney since the war began. 

This is what they do as a family now.

So Herc wraps his arms around his son and lifts his chin and kisses him properly. Gives him everything he wants.

It’s Christmas, after all.


	2. Chapter 2

The sounds of warm-up dying down, Herc looks around the small box he rented for this performance. Opening night, the first time the Australian Ballet has performed in their old haunts in Sydney, rebuilt now. Mutavore had demolished the structure. Everything is state of the art. The company has been promising grand things.

Herc can’t wait to see it.

The Nutcracker. 

It sold out in twelve hours, the entire month, when the tickets went online back in July. Ninety percent of those tickets awarded for purchase by lottery, no scalping allowed. The stage lighting was only hung two days ago. Eleven months of frantic, round-the-clock work, all for this night. 

A gift, then. One of many that the country has been given, the war won now. Herc hadn’t asked for it himself, not when it reminds him of everything he’s lost, which is always brightest and sharpest during the holidays, but the ballet company had insisted. 

They’d even kept the paparazzi away for him tonight, so he could arrive unmolested. 

The seat next to him is empty; it’s Chuck’s, of course, but the boy’s not here. Herc fiddles with his phone, wanting to call him. Boy won’t answer. Way it has to be, Herc supposes.

The lights dim. The director of the company comes out on stage. A tearful, heartfelt speech begins, as she talks about her own start as a ballerina in the children’s chorus, of what it meant to her to lose her stage and how she never expected to get it back. A moment of silence is proposed, “for all those who died, and all those who lived.”

Herc can see the section they always used to sit in. Here, he can see the entire stage, perfect center, dead on. It’s the best box in the entire house. But he misses the cheap seats, the lower floor, where the view wasn’t great but there was nobody behind them to stop little Charlie from standing up on his mum’s lap, watching with open-mouthed awe.

He unfolds his program, and stares at him, not really reading the words.

It’s a lot, being back here. After Pitfall. After searching desperately, for days, trying to find Striker’s escape pod. After...

“...and one last thing before we begin,” the elegant old lady on stage says, one single spotlight on her now, the other off. “I promised him I wouldn’t say anything, but I know this place means as much to him as it does me, and without him, we never would have made our schedule. He has been instrumental in giving our country back this piece of its culture, helping us rebuild, stepping us as stage manager, and for everything he’s done, I just...” and she turns, off stage right. “Chuck Hansen, would you please come out here and take a bow?”

The reaction is immediate, and thunderous.

Even the orchestra is on its feet.

Chuck pokes his head around the thick red curtains, waving once with that new prosthetic hand of his at the audience, and Herc doesn’t need the ghost drift to sense the embarrassment rolling off his son.

The boy needed a project to help him through his recovery, the doctors said. A reason to get up in the morning. 

As Chuck yells something at the front rows, and the applause is interrupted by laughter, as the orchestra signals the start of the performance, as the stage is bathed in gold light, Herc couldn’t be more proud of his boy.

**Author's Note:**

> I really want to write a story now where Chuck's Clara and Herc's the Nutcracker/Prince. Heh heh heh...


End file.
